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Court completes hearing witnesses in Aug 21 grenade attack cases

A Dhaka court has completed recording the testimonies of witnesses in two cases filed over the deadly grenade attack on an Awami League rally at Bangabandhu Avenue on August 21, 2004.
On completion of recording statements of the prosecution and defence witnesses, Judge Shahed Nuruddin of the Dhaka Speedy Trial Tribunal 1 fixed October 23 for arguments hearing in the cases.
Since the trial started in 2011, the tribunal has heard 225 out of 511 prosecution witnesses and 20 defence witnesses in the two cases.
The temporary court set up at a building near the gate of former Dhaka Central Jail on Nazimuddin Road, is holding the trial in the cases — one for the murders and the other under the Explosive Substances Act — simultaneously.
The grisly attack on an Awami League rally in the capital left 24 people, including Ivy Rahman, wife of late President Zillur Rahman, dead and more than 300 others injured.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, then the opposition leader, survived the attack with a serious hearing impairment.
Of the 52 accused in the two cases, eight are on bail while 24 others, including former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar, are behind bars.
BNP Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman and 17 other accused have been absconding.
Two of the accused - Jamaat-e-Islami leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and Mufti Abdul Hannan were hanged in a war crime and a grenade attack case respectively.